Colonel Angus
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Yes the market just been humming along due to those massive corporate profits
The two straight quarterly decreases in GDP meet the standard definition of a technical recession. But in the case of the U.S. economy, the contraction in GDP is misleading, given the large role played by inventories.
Supply chain disruptions have left unfinished products on factory floors or at shipping docks. These products cannot be included in GDP until they go into inventories.
Inventories rose at a $83.9 billion rate last quarter after increasing at a $188.5 billion pace in the first quarter. They subtracted 1.83 percentage points from GDP. Consumer spending grew at a 1.5% pace, revised up from the previously reported 1.0% rate. Shortages and the resulting higher prices have crimped spending.
Real-time (ish) false data is not that helpful. It means a month worth of policy has been based on misinformation.
Domestic GDP only shrank 0.6% in the second quarter, not the 0.9% reported last month.
Ten Thousand Million Jobs created since Biden took office!!
Yet another data point supporting the fact the U.S. is definitely NOT in a recession
Ten Thousand Million Jobs created since Biden took office!!
Yet another data point supporting the fact the U.S. is definitely NOT in a recession
Sure, but it isn't false data (or misinformation) as much as it is incomplete. At least in this case.
It isn't like they were like, "The domestic economy shrunk by nine tenths of one percent!" and then a month later said, "Oh shit, it really grew two percent! Our bad!"
And neither monetary nor fiscal policy is set based upon an initial read of GDP that may be off by a few basis points... It is just part of the broader mosaic that contributes to decision making.
And in fact, that broader mosaic is why there is debate about a recession to begin with... If you just look at GDP, then yeah, we are in a recession. But that's not helpful in trying to figure out policy going forward. There is a lot of supply chain shit going on. There is a really weird employment backdrop. There is a level of inflation that we haven't seen in decades. There is a housing market that is unlike anything we've seen before. I don't think anybody really knows what the next few months/years will look like.
The adjustments are par for the course and, as you stated, negative 0.6 compared to negative 0.9 is negligible. GDP actually went down prior to the Nov 2000 election, but the initial report was positive growth. After the election, it was adjusted downward to negative growth. I doubt Ph was moaning about that.
The chief executive, who assumed the position earlier this year, said that weakening global shipment volumes drove FedEx’s disappointing results. While the company anticipated demand to increase after factories shuttered in China due to Covid opened back up, it actually fell, he said.
“Week over week over week, that came down,” Subramaniam said.
The chief executive also said that the loss in volume is wide-reaching, and that the company has seen weekly declines since around its investor day in June.
“We’re seeing that volume decline in every segment around the world, and so you know, we’ve just started our second quarter,” he said. “The weekly numbers are not looking so good, so we just assume at this point that the economic conditions are not really good.”
“We are a reflection of everybody else’s business, especially the high-value economy in the world,” he later added.
I wonder if people realize how hugely important avoiding that rail strike was? It sounds like the ILWU (longshoremen) were considering striking at the same time for maximum effect.
It would have taken a few weeks for us to feel the pain, but damn that would have sucked all around.